Real Talk Payments

Pagos

Real Talk Payments gets to the heart of what matters in payments - stripping away filters, cutting through buzzwords, and grounding every conversation in real expertise and experience. Pagos delivers candid discussions that educate, challenge assumptions and spotlight the realities every payments professional needs to understand. It’s bold, transparent, and made for those who want substance over hype.

Episodes

  1. 17 FEB

    AI in Payments: Hype vs. Reality

    In this episode of Real Talk Payments, host Kapil Mokhat sits down with Klas Back (CEO, Pagos) and Albert Drouart (CPO, Pagos) to cut through the hype and separate the signal from noise in the AI and payments conversation. They dig into what is actually changing for modern merchants. Payments stacks are getting more complex with more markets, more payment methods, and more vendors. At the same time, payments teams are being asked to do more with fewer people, often without the visibility needed to spot leakage, rising costs, or declining acceptance until it is too late. A central theme is that AI only matters if the underlying payments data is trustworthy. Klas and Albert explain why the industry is moving toward verified data that is clean, normalized, and timely so teams can shift from slow, manual investigation to faster answers and better decisions. From there, the conversation turns to what the future looks like in practice. Think proactive monitoring, smarter alerts, and higher quality signals that can drive better routing, retries, vendor performance conversations, and benchmarking beyond your own four walls. The goal is to help teams focus on the issues that truly move the needle, not the small distractions that eat up time. They also keep it real about what is overhyped today, including some of the noise around agentic payments, while still acknowledging what is coming and why getting the fundamentals right matters more than ever.

    36 min
  2. The Dark Arts of Payments: Decoding Declines, Downgrades, and Hidden Costs

    7 FEB

    The Dark Arts of Payments: Decoding Declines, Downgrades, and Hidden Costs

    Real Talk Payments pulls back the curtain on the payment processing industry through candid conversations with seasoned veterans who've seen it all. Hosted by Pagos, this podcast brings together industry leaders with decades of combined experience to share the unfiltered truth about what really happens behind every transaction. In this inaugural episode, our host, Kapil Mokhat is joined by Andy Barker (Pagos), Albert Drouart (CPO and Co-founder of Pagos), and Matt Wagner (VP and GM of Payments at Adobe) for a deep dive into the industry's quirks, frustrations, and hard-earned lessons. From the mysterious "do not honor" decline code that's been the number two decline reason for over 25 years, to the shocking reality of hidden FX markups reaching 300 basis points, nothing is off limits. The conversation explores why payment costs are anything but predictable, despite Visa and MasterCard's impressive profit margins. Discover how one conversation with a Mexican bank increased checkout success rates by 1,400 basis points overnight, and why merchants sometimes choose to pay millions in penalty fees because it makes good business sense. The panelists tackle the paradox of an industry selling speed and real-time processing while settlement still takes days, and why after a quarter-century, basic reporting and visibility remain surprisingly difficult. Whether you're a payments professional frustrated by opaque specifications, a merchant trying to optimize authorization rates, or simply curious about the invisible infrastructure powering global commerce, Real Talk Payments delivers the insider knowledge and practical insights you won't find anywhere else. No hype, just honest conversation from people who've actually been in the trenches.

    35 min
  • 2 Episodes

About

Real Talk Payments gets to the heart of what matters in payments - stripping away filters, cutting through buzzwords, and grounding every conversation in real expertise and experience. Pagos delivers candid discussions that educate, challenge assumptions and spotlight the realities every payments professional needs to understand. It’s bold, transparent, and made for those who want substance over hype.

Information

  • Creator
    Pagos
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Real Talk Payments
  • Show Website
    Real Talk Payments
  • Provider